Custom Templates and Themes
I’m finding there’s a real need for custom templates and themes for blogs, ecommerce, directory, and cms applications. Whether it’s a business site owner who wants to add a blog to his site mix and needs a WordPress or TextPattern Theme made to look just like the rest of his site, or a hobbyist with a very special niche who wishes to have a directory of other specialty sites within his niche, and wants to mirror the look of the directory to the rest of his site, this is a talent I’m blessed to have. Though I don’t feel that what I do is all that difficult, I’m finding that most people who can code an html page with relative ease find it impossible to wade through the morass of files that constitutes most script templates and come out the other side without a muddy mess.
The job I wrapped up this morning, a custom php link directory template for http://avmechanic.co.uk was one such job. The client couldn’t quite get the result he wanted despite an honest attempt at the job, so he handed the job to me. His response upon seeing the result was, “Well that looks pretty much perfect to me, thanks . . . I’m very happy with what you have done.” Php Link Directory Templates are a specialty of mine, since I was the first one to successfully template that with an xhtml/css tableless template and as close to validating as the script will allow. That first successful tableless template is the one running Kickass Webgeek Resources. Another one I did recently in a two column format is the one at SuperArchives.com, whose owner simply wanted to match the basic look of his article repository.
Custom Business WordPress Blog Themes are also much in demand, especially by established businesses who have nicely designed and recognizable sites and want to match their blogskin to their already established and branded look. The Apogee Search Blog was just such a treatment I did recently.
I’ve been playing with ebay templating and will soon be able to offer ebay templates to mirror the look of an established website. Check back within a week or two, I’m building my own now, as paying jobs permit.
With my third CubeCart ecommerce template under my belt (we’ll be launching my most recent within the next day or two, final testing is taking place now!) I can say with confidence that I can create a really unique look from scratch or mirror the look of an existing site with relative ease. I find CubeCart to be a fabulous script and love to skin it. If time permits I hope to port a couple of my WordPress Themes over to CubeCart templates for use by the community. I can certainly help anyone who wants to add ecommerce functionality while maintaining the look of an existing website. CubeCart is high on my list of xhtml/css friendly scripts, a very unusual feat for a shopping cart script, most of which are bloated old-style code generated from core.
If you are thinking of adding a dynamic script to your website and your current webgeek can’t come to terms with the templating, feel free to contact me for a quote. I’m sure you’ll be happy with the result.
Technorati tags- Custom Templates, WordPress Themes, CubeCart Templates, phpLD Templates
